Social networking is the interaction between people to share information, ideas, resources and interests. A popular form of social networking uses social networking services over the Internet. A social networking service allows a person to become a “user,” create a profile (description of the user) for the user's web page, communicate with other users, or utilize a range of other services available through the social network service. Examples of popular social networking services are Facebook® (Registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.) social networking services and Twitter® (Registered trademark of Twitter, Inc.) social networking services.
Users of Facebook social networking services and Twitter social networking services communicate with other users of the service through “social networking messages,” which are messages sent to the social networking service that can be made available to the general public, all users of the service, or to a select set of friends or followers.
For example, Facebook “friends” are pairs of Facebook users who have mutually agreed to be able to view each other's messages. A Facebook user can post a message on his or her “Facebook wall.” A “Facebook wall” is a user's virtual wall displayed when a user is logged in to the Facebook service. This wall is where a user can post messages for viewing by his or her friends, and where he or she can view messages posted by his or her friends on their walls. Users can also post messages directly on a friend's wall. In another example, a Twitter user can post a “Tweet®” message which is a message posted to a Twitter account. These Tweet messages can either be public or protected. A public Tweet message can be viewed by anyone while a protected Tweet message can only be seen by approved “followers.” Followers are other users of Twitter social networking service that have subscribed to a user's Twitter updates. In either of the examples above, once a social networking message is posted, it is disseminated to others.
Facebook social networking service operates on a network of servers including web servers, Memcached servers (generic high-performance, distributed memory object caching systems) and database servers. The servers receive and store data that users send when creating their profile. This data typically includes photos, lists of interests, contact information, and other information. The servers disseminate this data to other computing devices when users access the created profile. The servers communicate over the Internet with users on computing devices, such as computers or smart phones.
The servers receive messages from Facebook users attempting to communicate with others. These messages are sent from a computing device logged on to the Facebook service. The servers process and send the messages to the appropriate location (e.g., Facebook wall) for viewing by the appropriate users (e.g., friends). The messages can then be viewed on the computing device of the recipient user.
Twitter social networking service, similar to Facebook social networking service, operates on a network of servers including web servers, Memcached servers and database servers. The servers communicate over the Internet with users on computing devices, such as computers or smart phones. Twitter has a limited profile feature but is more focused on communication with the public and between users.
The servers receive Tweet messages from Twitter users wishing to share the Tweet message with others. The servers process and send the Tweet message to the Twitter profile of the sender and to the “timeline” (a list of all the Tweet messages from people a user follows) of the sender's followers.
When using a social networking service, security is a concern. Messages may be sent from someone pretending to be a specific user (spoofing) or from someone who has gained unauthorized access to a user's account (hacking). The messages may be embarrassing to the real/spoofed user. Also, users receiving these messages may respond with the release of personal information.
Authentication of a social network service user is typically limited to login authentication before access to the service is granted. A user typically enters a userID and password on the service home page to gain access. The userID and password are created when the user initially joins the service. Normally, after the initial login authentication, a user can utilize all the functionality of the social networking service.